Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Saturday accused the BJP government at the Centre of attempting to oust Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen from his ancestral home in Santiniketan.

"They (the BJP government) served notices on Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen to oust him from his Santiniketan home. The conspiracy did not succeed as the chief minister herself met the Nobel laureate at his home and handed over the land-related documents to him to ensure that no one could harass him. That is why we call them Bangla birodhi (anti-Bengal)," said Abhishek while addressing a poll rally in Birbhum's Khoiraolse, 55km from Santiniketan.

The authorities of Visva-Bharati — which has Prime Minister Narendra Modi as its chancellor — served multiple notices on Sen, asking him to vacate a stretch of 13 decimal land of his ancestral home Pratichi. The central university had argued that the economist was illegally occupying a part of the land.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, in January last year, visited the economist at his Santiniketan home and handed him all relevant land documents, which established that the allegation against the eminent scholar was completely wrong.

As the Nobel laureate did not follow the instructions and moved the court, claiming the varsity's allegation against him was wrong, the central university authorities, headed by its then vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty, sent him an eviction notice in April last year.

Finally, on January 31 this year, the court of the Birbhum district judge set aside the eviction order.

Abhishek sharpened his attack on the BJP referring to how the varsity authorities had installed a plaque at the varsity, describing it as a Unesco World Heritage Site, without the name of its founder Rabindranath Tagore.

The plaque, which was installed in two places on the campus, in October last year, however, mentioned the names of Narendra Modi and Bidyut Chakrabarty as the chancellor and vice-chancellor, respectively. Unesco announced Santiniketan as a World Heritage Site in September last year.

"Birbhum is the land of culture and it played a significant role in protecting the cultural ethos of Bengal. The BJP government at the Centre denigrated this pious land, too. They removed the name of Rabindranath Tagore from a plaque, despite people across the globe knowing the place by his name. The BJP government made an attempt to erase his (Tagore's) name," Abhishek added.

As the plaques without Tagore’s name had drawn sharp criticism from various quarters within India and abroad, the union education ministry sent a directive to the varsity authorities to replace those plaques with new ones, with the name of the bard. The controversial plaques were removed in December last year.

Abhishek also criticized the BJP for the cancellation of the nomination of its Birbhum nominee and former IPS officer Debasish Dhar. The election commission cancelled the nomination of former Cooch Behar police chief, Dhar, on Friday, as he failed to submit 'no-dues' clearances from the state government.